Pictured at the launch of The Ernst and Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2016 awards are programme director Sean Duffy, Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton, Anne Heraty of Cpl Resources and Kevin McLoughlin, partner lead for EY Entrepreneur Of the Year.

Ernst and Young (EY), the tax auditing company, has launched its annual Entrepreneur of the Year awards, centring on building a business legacy.

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Enterprise awards focus on building legacies

Independent.ie

Ernst and Young (EY), the tax auditing company, has launched its annual Entrepreneur of the Year awards, centring on building a business legacy.

Speaking at the launch of the awards, now in its 19th year, Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton highlighted the importance of start-ups to the Irish economy.

"Start-ups create two thirds of all new jobs across the Irish economy, and that is why we have put in place a plan to increase the number of businesses starting in Ireland every year and the number of jobs they are creating.

"A key part of this is celebrating and recognising the great successes of the amazing entrepreneurs we already have in Ireland," the minister said.

The awards are open to entrepreneurs across all sectors and growth stages and are split up into three categories - emerging, industry, and international - with eight finalists being listed in each category.

EY partner lead Kevin McLoughlin said that the awards alumni is currently facing the challenge of scaling their businesses, an issue EY has centred this year's awards around.

The winners of this year's overall award in Ireland will go on to challenge for the world title in 2017.

Last year's competition was won by brothers John and Patrick Collison for their online-payment firm, Stripe.

The deadline for this year's application is February 29 with 24 finalists set to be announced in April.